“The Name of This Book Is Secret (Secret #1)” by Pseudonymous Bosch
Genre: Middle Grade/Children’s Fiction, Mystery, Fantasy
Source: Library
Summary from Goodreads:
This is the story about a secret. but it also contains a secret story.
When adventurous detectives, Cass, an ever-vigilant survivalist, and Max-Ernest, a boy driven by logic, discover the Symphony of Smells, a box filled with smelly vials of colorful ingredients, they accidentally stumble upon a mystery surrounding a dead magician’s diary and the hunt for immortality.
Breaking the fourth wall with narration is really tricky to do. This book kind of got on my nerves with the narrator constantly addressing me. It really was a constant problem. The narrator wasn’t even being helpful with the narration. It was really all about what I’m not supposed to know, etc.
The story was interesting enough. I do love mysteries with clues that I can attempt to decipher. I think I would have been better off reading the book rather than listening to it for those types of clues. (It’s quite difficult to imagine what messages look like when you’re listening to them.)
The characters were a bit ridiculous and funny. It was nice to not take things too seriously.
The bottom line? The story had a lot of potential but the narration style killed it for me.
The Cheap Reader 